While the Ukrainian government thought that Western countries, especially the United States, would continue to support the country without expectations, the issue of Ukrainian mines showed that the United States does not do anything without expectations.
According to Ashura News, citing Mehr News Agency, in 2004, in the shadow of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, a Western-oriented politician of the country, became president, and it can be claimed that since then, tensions between Moscow and Kiev have been sparked. Tensions between the two countries escalated to the point that in 2014, Russia seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and annexed it. At that time, European countries and the United States tried to deal with this Russian action by imposing sanctions and by weakening the country's economy, prepare the conditions for the retake of Crimea.
In 2019, however, a new event occurred at the highest levels of the Ukrainian political space, and a comedy actor named Volodymyr Zelensky was elected by the people as the sixth president of Ukraine with the support of the Western-oriented faction in the country; with this election, political tensions between Moscow and Kiev began to intensify, and behind these tensions, the West also tried to keep the Russians behind the Ukrainian borders by imposing economic sanctions. It is not clear whether Russia increased the level of tension with Ukraine due to the border movements of the Ukrainian side in February 2022 and moved towards a military conflict with the country or due to the provocative actions of Western countries in encouraging Ukrainians to join NATO, but what has become clear is that Ukraine, confident of the full support of the West and the United States, moved towards a confrontation with Moscow.
In this direction, even before the war, Western countries and the United States had assured the Ukrainian side of their support by adopting serious political positions, and after the start of the conflict, they sent a significant amount of their weapons aid to Ukraine in the first months, and in the next step, they continued to support Ukraine by sending military advisors or financial assistance. In the United States, the country's Congress also passed resolutions to help Ukraine from time to time, either spontaneously or at the request of former US President Joe Biden.
What should be noted is who Ukraine relied on to confront Russia, even though the country could have largely avoided the war by engaging more with its eastern neighbor.
Ukrainian officials went to war with Russia, confident in the full support of Western countries, which was at least shown at the political level; but what the Ukrainians got in practice, beyond political positions, was the postponement of repayment of Ukraine's foreign debts, other financial aid, the sending of some weapons aid, including obsolete and old military vehicles and armor from European countries, and some ammunition in their warehouses.
In the early months of the war, a significant part of Ukraine's defense capabilities was destroyed, and aid from European countries could not help the country much in its confrontation with Russia. In the next step, Western countries, including the United States and Germany, along with France and England, announced the sending of tanks and F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine as game-changing cards. But what actually happened was that these tanks and fighter jets did not bring much success to Ukraine on the battlefield, and on the other hand, Russia annexed a significant part of Ukrainian territory after the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces through a referendum.
The West, which initially probably thought that it could challenge Russia and ultimately defeat it by supporting Ukraine, now seems to have concluded that the situation is not going in Ukraine’s favor and that there is no other way left to preserve the remaining Ukrainian territories except to negotiate with Russia.
Of course, some European countries, including France, Germany, and England, insist on continuing the conflict and supporting Ukraine for various reasons, including political interests. However, the American side, which has made a serious change in its policy since Donald Trump took office as the new president, is both seeking to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and has come to the conclusion that all the expenses it has made so far for Ukraine have been useless, and therefore has begun to think about cashing out its aid to this country. The Americans are seeking to cash out their financial aid by taking possession of Ukraine's mines and resources and reviving the spilled water.
It seems that the Ukrainian side, which initially thought that the Americans' intention to seize Ukraine's mines and resources was to enter the war more seriously, agreed with it. However, now that it has realized that the Americans have abandoned their policy of supporting Ukraine with a blank check and are seeking to cash in on their aid and end the war with Russia, they have refused to sign the contract to transfer the mines to the Americans.
In the continuation of this war, which has been going on for more than 3 years since its beginning, Ukraine, which initially counted on the support of the West to defeat Russia and even reclaim the Crimean Peninsula and was almost certain that it would achieve its goals with the calculation it made especially on the Americans, has now not only failed to reach the Crimean Peninsula and not even come close to defeating the Russians, but despite relying on the West, it has lost a significant part of its territory, including most of Ukraine's fertile lands, has sacrificed hundreds of thousands of its human resources to the goals of Western countries, and millions of its people have been displaced. On the other hand, the publication of the news that the Americans and Russians have been negotiating an end to the Ukrainian war for a long time has also caused a strange discouragement among the leaders of this country.
In addition to all that has been said, the Ukrainian side is witnessing that the United States, which once counted on its help to defeat Russia and perhaps even thought that it would support Ukraine even to the point of sending military forces and directly engaging with the Russians, is now greedily eyeing the country's rich reserves and mines and, regardless of everything that has happened to Ukraine, is playing a game of cards to collect its financial aid to this country.
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